Mention Jane Austen and you'll likely incite a slew of fervent opinions from anyone within earshot. Almost two hundred years after her death, Austen remains a hot topic, inspiring such bestsellers as The Jane Austen Book Club and popular films like Becoming Jane. Shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize for her life of Fanny Burney and the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman here gives us a sterling and witty picture of Jane Austen through the lens of her ever-evolving literary reputation.

"Wonderful ... not only scholarly but indecently entertaining.... [Harman's] prose rings with good sense, affection, and humour."—Daily Mail (UK)

"Harman's shrewd critical study, brimming with Brit wit, freshens up our impression of Austen—an enterprise always hampered by the overarching fact that Austen's life, like Shakespeare's, left behind few biographical fossils, not even a decent portrait.... With nimble steps, Harman dances through 200 years' worth of critical reception of Austen's novels, sharing the good, the bad and the brainless.... Harman's informed and elegant chronicle of the rise of 'Divine Jane' (as the late Victorians called her) is an eye-opener. The fact that Austen's posthumous success is also an affirmation of the ideal of a literary meritocracy—the notion that the canonical cream always rises to the top—makes Jane's Fame as happy a fairy tale as any of Austen's own novels."—NPR's Fresh Air